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Ryan Hunter-Reay
Ryan Hunter-Reay (born December 17th 1980) was born in Dallas Texas. He is also the most successful American driver currently competing in open wheel competition, with more race wins than all of the other current American IndyCar drivers (12) combined. He is wife is Beccy Gordon a former driver/reporter Hunter-Reay won the IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year award in 2007, despite only competing in six of the seventeen events, and Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year honors in 2008. In January 2010 Hunter-Reay was signed to drive for Andretti Autosport in the No.# 37 IZOD sponsored IndyCar, where he won the prestigious Long Beach Grand Prix and Andretti Autosports first win under the sole ownership of Michael Andretti. In October 2010 Andretti Autosport announced they had signed Hunter-Reay to a two year contract through 2012. For the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Championship Hunter-Reay drove the Andretti Autosport DHL Sponsored No.# 28 entry. 'Career' In 2003 Ryan joined CART where he drove for an under funded team at got a victory at Surfers Paradise. In 2004 he drove for Herdez Competition and won at Milwaukee and finished 9th. In 2005 he drove for Rocketsports Racing and failed to finish a single race in the top 5, Hunter Reay was fired before the final two races of the season. In 2007 Hunter-Reay replaced Jeff Simmons at Rahal Letterman Racing in the IRL series. He finished 7th and 6th in his first two races (Mid Ohio and Michigan). Despite only starting in six races, his performance was sufficient to win the 2007 Bombadier Rookie of the Year award. Hunter-Reay returned to Rahal Letterman for a full season in the merged IndyCar Series for 2008. Hunter-Reay won Indy 500 rookie of the year honors by finishing in 6th. Hunter-Reay got his first Indycar series win at Watkins Glen when he passed Darren Manning in the closing laps. He finished 8th in 2008. At the onset of 2009, Hunter-Reay was left rideless after Rahal Letterman announced they would not be running a full season due to a lack of sponsorship, but was able to sign a late deal with Vision Racing just before the season began. Hunter-Reay finished 2nd in his first race with the team, which was the best ever finish for Vision Racing. Hunter-Reay barely qualified for the the 2009 Indy 500 and started last. Hunter Reay later joined AJ Foyts team to replace the injured Vitor Meria. In 2010 it was announced that Hunter-Reay would drive the #37 Izod sponsored car for Andretti Autosport. It was was supposed to be a part time deal but after Ryan won at Long Beach Andretti sponsored him for the remainder of the season. He finished 7th in the standings. After the season he signed a two-year contract with Andretti Autosport to drive with the team through the 2012 season. In 2011 he drove for sponsor DHL. The year began with high expectations, but the season’s first-half results were disappointing. Despite having some good cars, mistakes and bad luck caused Ryan to finish no better than 14th through the first six races. Ryan twice qualified his car on the front row (Long Beach and São Paulo), and he was contending for a possible win at Long Beach when his race ended on lap 72 of 85 due to a gearbox malfunction. The disappointment culminated at Indianapolis when he failed to qualify for the 500-mile race, having been bumped by the last car as time expired. Despite not qualifying, he ran the race anyway, he replaced Bruno Junqueira in an AJ Foyt car but finished back in 23rd place. Hunter-Reay’s season finally turned around when he began a string of seven straight top-10 finishes with an 8th place at Iowa. He had podium finishes at Toronto and Mid-Ohio, and gained a controversial win at New Hampshire. The New Hampshire race result was protested, but a review committee upheld Hunter-Reay’s victory. After a bad-luck incident late in the race at Motegi resulted in a 24th place finish, Ryan finished the season with a 5th place at Kentucky. Despite the poor start to the season, Hunter-Reay battled back to finish 7th overall in the points standings with a very strong second-half. In 17 races, he had one win, four top 5 finishes, nine top 10 finishes, and 3 DNF. He will drive for Andretti Autosport in 2012 for the 2nd season of his contract. He has scored two victories so far in 2012 at Milwaukee and Iowa.